The Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories

This was an unusually long wait. He closed his eyes, just for a few moments, and when he opened them again he was both surprised and alarmed to discover that he had the whole long carriage to himself. Nobody else at all in sight. Had they shouted, “Hampstead – all change!” and he’d missed it? Even dim as he felt, he was about to make for the door when, with an unpleasant jerk, the train started again. Then two things, equally unpleasant, happened together. There were several loud bangs and the lights went out. Badly shaken, there in the dark with the train obviously gathering speed, he made up his mind he would get out at the next stop, which would be Golders Green, and find a taxi to take him up to Mum’s place. The lights came on again, and though they seemed bright enough at first, after the dark, he soon realized that in fact they were much lower than they’d been before. Ten to one some powercut frigging nonsense!

Then quite suddenly – and it came like a hammer-blow at the heart – he knew that this train was going nowhere near Golders Green. At the same time he felt that it wasn’t moving like all the others, which went more or less level or climbed a bit to rush out into the open air. No, it was going down and down. And what had that tall crackpot said? Something about a second line going deeper still – on and on, deeper and deeper – ? He tried to forget this but he couldn’t, and he began to wish there was somebody else with him who could explain what was happening. The train went rattling on, faster now than the usual underground train. There was nothing to be seen of course, and with this poor lighting he could hardly catch a glimpse of his own reflection. He tried cursing and blinding, to stop himself feeling frightened; but it didn’t work.

However, bringing a flood of relief, something happened he never remembered seeing before on an underground train. Some sort of conductor chap, wearing a dark uniform, had come through a door at the far end of the carriage and was now walking towards him – that is, if you could call this slow shuffle a walk. Enjoying his relief, Ray took a seat at last and began rehearsing the indignant questions he would ask. “Now look here,” he called out, “what the hell’s the idea – ?” But there he stopped, terrified. He was staring at something out of a nightmare. The man hadn’t a face, just eyes like a couple of blackcurrants, and nothing else – no mouth, no nose, no ears. In his terror Ray huddled into his seat and shut his eyes tight, hoping feverishly that the lard-faced monster wouldn’t stop, even to put a finger on him, but would go shuffling past him. And this indeed he did, so that when Ray risked opening his eyes he was alone again. That was something, and what happened next was better still. At last the train was slowing down. There must be a station soon – certainly not Golders Green – but whatever the station was, however far it might be from Hendon Central, it was where he would get out of this nightmare train.

He caught glimpses of an enormous packed platform. As soon as the train stopped he reached the door, but even then it was too late. He was swept back by a solid mass of people, who pushed and shoved like maniacs and closed round him so that he couldn’t move and felt he could hardly breathe. And what people! All the faces he’d ever looked away from, disgust blotting out compassion, seemed to be here, and the train was already moving again. He felt he was hemmed in by ulcers, abscesses, half-blind eyes, rotting noses, gangrenous mouths and chins. And how far, how long? Even out of the depths of his nausea, he’d have to say something.

He put his question to the face nearest to him, a twisted slobbery caricature of a face, but all he got in reply was a senseless gabble.

“No use asking him,” a voice said over his shoulder. “He’s forgotten how to talk. What you want to know?” The voice belonged to a bull of a man with a face like a volcanic eruption.

“Where—” and it was a shaky question, “where are we going?”

“Where we going?” the bull roared. “We’re not going anywhere, you silly sod.” Now he roared louder still. “Time to push around, shove about, all you bastards!”

Ray found at his elbow an old creature whose nose and chin nearly met: she could have been a witch out of an ancient fairy tale. “I’ll tell you where you’re not going, young man,” she said, cackling and spitting. “He-he-he! You’re not going to Rio in Brazil. Not now and not ever. He-he-he!”

His heart turning into ice-water, he understood at last that he might never know anything again except this underground journey to nowhere, wedged beyond any chance of escape among these malicious jeering monstrosities